10 Reasons to Use Social Media
What reasons can you think of to justify your use of social media?
An effective social media program takes time, an investment and ongoing devotion of resources in order for it to be successful. When launching a social media program, it is often easy for a business to look at what will be involved and reconsider the launch. DON’T! Social media is a crucial element to any business’s success, and here are ten reasons why that is true.
1. Garner Exposure
Thus far in the progress of both mankind and marketing, there is only one place that allows you to market to a billion people with the click of a button (theoretically). Social media networks are one place where hundreds of millions of people gather on a regular basis for the sole purpose of seeing your content. (OK, maybe not all of them are there to see yours specifically, but you understand what we mean.)
2. Generate New Leads
The beauty of these hundreds of millions of users is that each and every one is, in theory, a potential customer! Take advantage of this untapped reservoir of potential clients and use social media to generate new leads that can be nurtured and eventually converted into clients.
3. Build an Online Community
Brand advocates are gold in any business. The best way to turn a lead or customer into a brand advocate, you ask? Give your brand a personality by building an online community of people who love interacting with your brand. This online community will extend far beyond the number of ‘Likes’ of followers you have, and that’s great for business.
4. Target Niche Audiences
People everywhere know from experience how hard acquiring a phone number might be in a social setting, but on a social network, it’s just handed to you along with so much more! This gives you the perfect opportunity to target specific audiences with different campaigns in a much different way than what had previously been done – and for a far lower cost of management!
5. Integrate CRM
Social media provides a perfect environment in which to nurture leads through engagement. Integrating your CRM with your social media will allow you to streamline all of your efforts when it comes to converting leads.
6. Monitor Your Activity
One of the beautiful aspects of social media is the ease with which one can monitor one’s activity. Insights and analytics are available for almost every aspect of your social programs. Analyzing these help you maximize your efforts and minimizes redundancies so your social media programs are optimized for maximum success.
7. Effective Marketing
People are willing to share much more with strangers than they might be with your brand, and social media is a great way to monitor the success or failure of a marketing or advertising campaign. Did you think your edgy politically-themed campaign was going to strike a chord with your audience? Well, they might think differently, and monitoring sentiment and reception on social media allows you to know exactly what your audience is thinking and how to target them appropriately.
8. Increase Your Reach
Extend beyond your immediate networks and explore new audiences which, in turn, will expand your business into new territory.
9. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
We noted in a post earlier this month that social signals as a result of social media efforts play quite a role in search rankings. So take advantage of what social media has to offer when it comes to getting found.
10. SELL!
It goes without saying, but the goal of every business is sales (of whatever it is you are offering). Businesses that are highly active on social media note in overwhelming number an increase in sales as a result of their efforts on social networks, so don’t let your skepticism get in the way of increased sales.
What other reasons can you think of that support launching a social media campaign? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!
